The improvement of field crops is a time-consuming, labor-intensive task that often requires extensive use of valuable cropland. Typically, a desirable characteristic is observed in a particular crop plant and is either cross-bred with another strain of the crop, selfed, or back-crossed with the parental line and then back-crossed with the parental line for numerous generations.
If the characteristics for which a breeding program is initiated is only manifest in the seed or fruit of the mature plant, the time and labor expended in evaluating the candidate in a particular breeding program are maximal. Oil content of sunflower fruits is a characteristic which has heretofore only been determinable by direct evaluation of the oil content of mature seed. Thus, evaluating the oil content of seed candidates in a sunflower seed oil breeding program using traditional methods utilized the resources of time, labor and land maximally.
A significant saving in these resources could be effected if it were possible to determine the seed oil content of sunflower seed candidates at a time prior to maturation of the sunflower plant. Preferably such determination would be carried out very early in the sunflower plant life cycle, would require little or no land and would require a minimum of time.